according to keri on grantland the going rate per win is $6MM. 6 * 2.4 = 14.4although, yes, it was below his recent standards

I don't disagree with your point, but where are you getting those numbers? Is 2.4 supposed to be Swisher's regular season WAR (it was actually 3.8 )? And I know this was Dan's number, but Swisher was paid $11m this year (I think $14mis the average over the life of the contract), so by Keri's measure (other's have a lower number for this season, closer to $5m) Swisher was actually worth more than $20m this season.

Bottom line, it's hard to argue that Swisher is overpaid. You probably don't make the playoffs if you throw a scrub off the bench in there instead of him. He was probably your 3rd most productive position player. The other 2 are still on their rookie contracts, so of course they provide better value, but you can't build a contender solely out of players still on their base contracts (at least not with Cleveland's payroll).

A bigger concern is that he's owed $15m in each of the next 3 years, and he's definitely on the decline.

And if by in decline you mean slightly lucky last year and slightly unlucky this year then yes.His BABIP went down 36 points from last year to this. And his batting average? Down 26 points.That's the difference between a good season and a bad. And next year he'll probably be somewhere in between.He hit the same number of home runs. Same walk rate and strikeout rate. The only difference in his stats is that number

And if by in decline you mean slightly lucky last year and slightly unlucky this year then yes.His BABIP went down 36 points from last year to this. And his batting average? Down 26 points.That's the difference between a good season and a bad. And next year he'll probably be somewhere in between.He hit the same number of home runs. Same walk rate and strikeout rate. The only difference in his stats is that number

I just remembered that there are at least 4-5 versions of WAR out there (see here for a comparison). Baseball Reference's, which is what ESPN uses, had him at 3.8 this year. It'd be hard to tell, but based on the numbers I'm pretty sure Keri's $6m per 1.0 WAR was not based off of the Fan Graphs version. You'd have to have that $ amount calculated for the same WAR version you're using to come up with the true dollar value for any specific version of WAR. Fan Graphs is actually the only one that does the whole dollar value calculation explicitly, and they have him at $12.1m for 2013.

As far as Swisher's decline, right off the bat, you can see in his Fan Graphs page you already linked to that his 2.4 was well below his 4 year NYY average (3.6), and even below his career average (3.0). Yet his BABIP was just 0.03 lower than his career average, so it's hard to argue that he was unluckier this year than throughout his career on average. And in terms of dollar value, his $12.1m this year is above the $11m, he was paid this year, but well below the $15m he'll be paid the next few years.

I just remembered that there are at least 4-5 versions of WAR out there (see here for a comparison). Baseball Reference's, which is what ESPN uses, had him at 3.8 this year. It'd be hard to tell, but based on the numbers I'm pretty sure Keri's $6m per 1.0 WAR was not based off of the Fan Graphs version. You'd have to have that $ amount calculated for the same WAR version you're using to come up with the true dollar value for any specific version of WAR. Fan Graphs is actually the only one that does the whole dollar value calculation explicitly, and they have him at $12.1m for 2013.

As far as Swisher's decline, right off the bat, you can see in his Fan Graphs page you already linked to that his 2.4 was well below his 4 year NYY average (3.6), and even below his career average (3.0). Yet his BABIP was just 0.03 lower than his career average, so it's hard to argue that he was unluckier this year than throughout his career on average. And in terms of dollar value, his $12.1m this year is above the $11m, he was paid this year, but well below the $15m he'll be paid the next few years.

That's some fancy math comparing his war to his Yankees years and then his BAPIP to his career average. Try comparing both to his Yankee years and you'll see that's where the whole decline came from. His peripherals are all the same. His line drive rate slightly up, pop up rate slightly down. Only difference between Yankees years and last year was BAPIP.

That's some fancy math comparing his war to his Yankees years and then his BAPIP to his career average. Try comparing both to his Yankee years and you'll see that's where the whole decline came from. His peripherals are all the same. His line drive rate slightly up, pop up rate slightly down. Only difference between Yankees years and last year was BAPIP.

I'll make it easy for you - let's do career first. His career WAR is 27.7 over 10 years. That includes his first season in which he barely played at all and produced a WAR of 0. If you ignore that year his average WAR is over 3. So his WAR in 2013 was 20% below his career average while his BABIP was basically 1% below his career average - a negligible difference.

Now if you'd like to argue that the Yankee years are a better point of comparison because they're more recent, we can do that to. Using the number of ground balls and fly balls in each of his Yankee years (it's all on his Fan Graphs page) you can weight the BABIP listed to get his true BABIP for those 4 years. It comes out to .307, which means his BABIP was less than 10% worse this year than in his Yankee years. His Yankee WAR average was 3.6, which means his 2.4 WAR this year was more than 30% worse than in his Yankee years. You're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that his drop in overall production is due to bad luck on BIP.

We can sit here and break down the components from today until tomorrow, but you're going to find that this season was definitely a decline from both recent years and career averages, much more than any luck factors can explain. If you want to argue that it's one bad season and it doesn't constitute a decline, that's fine - though I don't buy it, especially at this later stage in his career.

Now if you'd like to argue that the Yankee years are a better point of comparison because they're more recent, we can do that to. Using the number of ground balls and fly balls in each of his Yankee years (it's all on his Fan Graphs page) you can weight the BABIP listed to get his true BABIP for those 4 years. It comes out to .307, which means his BABIP was less than 10% worse this year than in his Yankee years. His Yankee WAR average was 3.6, which means his 2.4 WAR this year was more than 30% worse than in his Yankee years. You're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that his drop in overall production is due to bad luck on BIP.

We can sit here and break down the components from today until tomorrow, but you're going to find that this season was definitely a decline from both recent years and career averages, much more than any luck factors can explain. If you want to argue that it's one bad season and it doesn't constitute a decline, that's fine - though I don't buy it, especially at this later stage in his career.

Correct. Yankee years are a better comparison.And you are calculating 10% worse BAPIP as if that directly correlates to WAR. But batting average decline of 10% would not imply a ten percent decline in war as the replacement player does not have a 0% batting average (it's actually probably around .250). As such a ten predawn decline in batting average would directly corelate to a thirty percent decline in war. Again, all his peripherals are exactly identical if not slightly better from the Yankee years

Correct. Yankee years are a better comparison.And you are calculating 10% worse BAPIP as if that directly correlates to WAR. But batting average decline of 10% would not imply a ten percent decline in war as the replacement player does not have a 0% batting average (it's actually probably around .250). As such a ten predawn percent? decline in batting average would directly corelate to a thirty percent decline in war. Again, all his peripherals are exactly identical if not slightly better from the Yankee years

This is so patently false as to be absurd. First of all, batting is only one component of WAR, fielding and defense (positionally adjusted) being the other 2. Second of all, within the batting component, BABIP is only even partially relevant to some of it's sub-components (around 80%), not the parts that don't involve a BIP. And third of all, BABIP is helpful for analyzing BA because it's essentially isolating the portion that the batter and pitcher have the least control over. But WAR (even just the batting portion) differentiates between types of hits because of the differing roles they play in creating runs.

Which peripherals are you referring to? All of his numbers are either equal to or below his Yankee years, not above.

This is so patently false as to be absurd. First of all, batting is only one component of WAR, fielding and defense (positionally adjusted) being the other 2. Second of all, within the batting component, BABIP is only even partially relevant to some of it's sub-components (around 80%), not the parts that don't involve a BIP. And third of all, BABIP is helpful for analyzing BA because it's essentially isolating the portion that the batter and pitcher have the least control over. But WAR (even just the batting portion) differentiates between types of hits because of the differing roles they play in creating runs.

Which peripherals are you referring to? All of his numbers are either equal to or below his Yankee years, not above.

I'm saying everything else being equal, a small (30 point) drop in BAPIP can cause a big drop in WARK rate, walk rate, line drive rate (way up), pop up rate (way down).The one thing that was down was his home run rate.Case in point to being lucky, his infield hit rate was way down